


Poke and Prod

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [175]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Panic Attacks, mentions of past substance abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-05 16:28:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16371095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: Tony breaks his wrist because his backhand is shit and Steve’s is a killer.





	Poke and Prod

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Pulling two Avenger-themed Ziploc bags from a box: Iron Man followed by Doctor Strange.

Tony breaks his wrist because his backhand is shit and Steve’s is a killer.

“God,” Steve says ten times between the court and the clubhouse, “oh my god, Tony, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!”

“Pfffft,” Tony says right before his head hits the pavement, “I’d left myself wide open.”

Mercifully, he doesn’t remember Steve carrying him to the car or Happy swearing his way to the hospital or the weird, jarring pain that come with having a bone sticking out of his body. Thank you, concussion.

No, the next thing he remembers is waking up in the ER, blinking at those godawful overheads and hearing Happy on the phone, telling Pepper what a dumbass Tony is. Well, he thinks, painfully blinks, no argument here.

The nurse who pokes him is cute; the doctor who prods him isn’t, but that may be because the guy talks about scary shit like _surgery_ and _pins_ and _no tennis for 8-12 weeks_.

“I’m fine,” he tries to say through a mouth full of morphine, but exactly nobody pays him any mind. Which is just as well, probably. He hasn’t had this much high-quality drug in his system in ages ( _20 years and two months_ , his NA brain supplies) and his tolerance has clearly gone to shit; after he starts seeing purple garden gnomes climbing up Happy’s legs, there’s no reason even to trust his eyes.

They cart him upstairs and leave Happy behind, Happy who’s as white as a sheet. _This is nothing_ , Tony wants to say. _Remember that time in Hong Kong when I went skydiving?_ But his brain is sweet mush and his lips are twisted and it’s easier to lie back and sigh, to let them take him wherever and do whatever they want so long as it ends with his ulna back inside his skin where it fucking belongs.

Another room; cold this one, that ozone smell of sterile, and the part of him that isn’t totally knackered goes quaky instead.

They’re gonna put him under, aren’t they? And while that’s a better alternative to the sewing-bone snapping-super gory than seeing it live, he’s never liked anesthesia, the idea of somebody else putting him out of his mind.

So maybe he struggles, maybe he moves around more than he should, because he gets two bodies in scrubs at his side, trying without touching to keep him from rolling off the damn table, and that only makes it worse because this, this is panic, the kind that can cut through opiates, kick down doors; the kind he used to silence with other things, that now he’s only allowed to use breathing, control, control of his breath, and he can’t catch that right now, can’t hold on it, and he’s--

“Hey!” somebody says, a new someone, tall, looming right over his head. “Be still, goddamn it.”

Tony opens his mouth, bobs it like a trout in the wind, and the new someone slaps a hand on his chest, hard, latex scruff on the skin of his chest.

“What did I just say?” new guy growls, his eyes furious between his scrub cap and his mask. “I don’t care who you are, Stark, or how many fucking wings your foundation’s paid for. You roll off my operating table and I’m leaving you on the floor. Are we clear?”

And that’s the last thing Tony remembers before there’s a mask on his face, rubberly cold, and soothing voice at his side counting down with him from ten: the dark opals of the doctor’s eyes and they way they stay fixed on him--the way his hand does--until Tony trips over the number eight and plummets into uneasy sleep.

 

*****

“Who was that guy?”

“Who was that guy who, boss?”

Tony chomps on another ice chip. “The one who put me back together, Hap. The savior of the Eight Billion Dollar Man. And don’t call me boss. I hate that.”

Happy sets down his magazine, smug. “I know. I called you _boss_ the whole time you were under. It was my little test to see if you were really asleep.”

“I’m glad my brief invalid state amused you. What's it been? Two hours?"

“Five. Gotta take joy where you find it.” Happy's face goes cotton candy. “That’s what Pep says, anyway.”

Tony thinks about hurling the Jello cup at him. Thinks. Hap’s lucky he’s down his good hand. “The sooner you answer my freaking question, the sooner you and Ms. Potts can be alone, so...”

“Oh, the surgeon guy,” Happy says, suddenly right back on track. “Him, yeah. His name’s Stephen Strange, and let me tell you, Tone, that guy is no fucking peach.”

“No,” an icy voice from the doorway says. “I’m not. But I am the best surgeon this hospital’s got and why I was forced to waste my skill on repairing your very boring wrist, Mr. Stark, I can’t bring myself to understand.”

Happy turns the color of the walls--a downtrodden puce--and Strange stalks in, his back up like a real pissed-off cat, and if Tony weren’t riding the wave of some very good shit, he might be intimidated. Now, though, his brain softened at the edges and the cast on his arm still a far-away throb, now all Tony can do is laugh at his insecure security chief, at the storm of a man in street clothes so carefully casual that Tony knows they’re custom-made. A man who’s standing at the foot of his bed with his arms crossed and his mouth set in a low, solid line.

“I wasn’t aware that you found hospitals so entertaining,” Strange says with a murderous look that glances off Tony and his shield of the really good shit.

Tony grins. Leans back against the pillows and does it again. “I don’t, honestly. But I find you fucking hilarious, Strange.”


End file.
